timppu: Ah, the world of DRM... Especially in the context of just replacing one DRM system with another, and then pretending everything is fine again for good.
Paradoks: Technically replacing GFWL with Steam is introducing DRM. GFWL allowed offline profiles. The games discussed here had other forms of protection (usually Securom), but GFWL itself was not DRM.
There's 2 types of GFWL. Legacy GFWL usually has around 15 limited activations. I don't know if you can launch all legacy GFWL games with an offline profile without ever entering a CD key, but even if you can, you wouldn't be able to play online multiplayer or have online features.
2nd form of GFWL is SSA, which doesn't have an activation limit but binds the key to your Xbox live account.
GFWL is definitely DRM.. in some cases I would say worse than securom since you can't revoke activations.